Now, there is no excuse to accomplish what we believe God has given us to do. God gives us a “want” and then it is up to us to be persuaded and want His want more than what we have been doing up till now. If it is a godly home, holy lifestyle, or something simple like gardening skills that we want, then with patience we wait for the hope. By patience, I mean the seeking, searching, learning, doing, living, the building of character in your life. If you want something, then there should be joy of the process, not full of complaining, or feelings of inadequacy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. It is His desires that we have, so therefore His desires are joyful.

"Busy, busy, busy", is the cry in America today. Places to go and people to see, and little time to do it. How do we slow our lives down just a little bit? There have been many books written on the subject of "slowing our lives down", but it doesn't seem to help. Why? I believe if we take a close hard look at our lives, we will find some of the answers. I believe one of the biggest answers lies with our culture and modern technology.

In all my travels, I’ve been in many houses. Once inside, I like to do scientific observation. OK, so maybe it’s not scientific, but I do observe many things. You can tell a lot about a family just by looking around for a little while. You can usually guess what goes on in the house and what is important to the family just by observing. I like to look at the layout of the house, pictures on the wall, how nice or expensive things are, if the house is clean and well organized, etc. As I stand in the “living or family” room, I am amazed at how uncreative people are. For the most part, all the “living” rooms look alike. I realize that there are different color schemes, and some furniture differs. But, you can find a couch, love seat, end tables, recliners, lamps, pictures, stereos, televisions, and coffee tables. There is little difference between the believer and unbeliever's houses.

We as believers have bought into a lie that the tithe is for us today. Like shots no one even thinks of questioning the procedure and they continue to go to the doctor like lemmings. When a minister gets up to the pulpit and begins to talk on giving, they talk to you as if you should know that giving means tithing. Well it doesn’t. Do a little study on the subject yourself and you will find out that they have been feeding you a line...